The following message (based on conversations had at the Three Speech event) has appeared on messageboards and been appropriated into news stories across various websites. We checked in with PlayStation to see if they had any additional comment to make. They have no great qualms with the info aside from the following point - the Tivo functionality in Q3 2007. Seems it’s certainly technically possible to do that with PS3, but they’re not making any guarantees about if or when they’d add that functionality.
——————-
Quote:
INFO GATHERED FROM LONDON’S www.threespeech.com event with Phil Harrisson (December 12th 2006)
Playstation 3 european launch within the first 2 weeks of March 2007, as explained to me, Sony’s financial year ends on the 3rd week of March and therefore they want to launch before the next finanacial year begins. Judging that UK consoles always release on a friday expect the european launch on either the 2nd or 9th of March. Though a strong hint was that they are hoping to drop the playstation 3 on the 3rd day of the 3rd month (march 3rd).
On the same day as playstation 3’s euro launch SCE are to distribute there march firmware update with features including:
multi-tasking (included will be audio/video conferencing while browsing the xmb and its features/ gameplay).
new xmb display options
new animations for audio playback.
new photo album options.
playstation store auto ressume
psp remote play advanced access option (so that you can have access to your ps3’s content anywhere that has a internet connection)
Firmware will be constantly updated, with the view of a tv tuner and tivo like service to be available in the 3rd quater of 2007.
Also it is hoped that the same week as the euopean launch of the system will also see the worldwide launch of the ps3’s HDip Camera (specifications to be announced at a later date). In terms of other accessories, Sony dont see it as a necesity to manufacture playstation branded headsets, keyboards or mice, as put to me by Jonathun of SCE’s threespeech.com ‘Third party companies can offer these accessories to the consumer at a price which SCE could not compete’.
A extension to the Sony online store will also make its debut in march. Titled ‘Sing Store’, PS3 owners will be able to purchase songs for there ‘Sing Star’ kareoke programme from a slew of artists and will also be given the option to view the songs purchased as music videos via the video playback option within the xmb.
In terms of the european online store, while still being extremley vague, a spokesman for SCE europe was able to explain that Sony would have no defense if they were to charge the european consumer more than in other regions as there are no extra costs on digital distribution as apposed to a product with packaging etc. So expect a $15.00 download to cost people in the UK around £6.50.
other notes-
PS3 will be sold at £425 or lower, meaning we could have it cheaper then the previousley stated price.
Dont expect to see 20GB models available in europe.
No VGA cables to be released.
No plans to make RSX available to Linux OS, due to security issues.
A service to reserve your playstation online id will be up and running this weekend or next.
Sony make a much smaller loss on European PS3’s, so expect production to be diverted there, if needed.
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That’s a post by sig-gotyouth from our PSINext forum
http://forums.e-mpire.com/showthread.php?t=66003&page=3
Comment by VG Aficionado — Dec 14, 2006 @ 5:29 pm
Here’s hoping for that 3/3/07 date!
I’m also hoping the reaction to the 60gb being the only model and the price drop give enough good feedback to persuade Sony to share the single-low-priced-SKU love over here in the states as well.(you too Canada!)
Comment by OrganicShadow — Dec 14, 2006 @ 6:27 pm
Great news.
Comment by Neil — Dec 14, 2006 @ 7:00 pm
Question to Threespeech/Sony, does the future multi-tasking planned feature include background downloading? In other words, will I be able to play be playing a game of Resistance or Heavenly Sword while I’m downloading a new trailer for Spiderman 3 (just an example)? Or could I download multiple items at once or have a download queue setup? Maybe you could have some type of option setup where it will only take up a certain amount of your bandwidth so in case you are playing multiplayer games in Resistance or Motorstorm, it wouldn’t get laggy.
Comment by Andy — Dec 14, 2006 @ 7:08 pm
Hi, I live in France and I think it’s a good news that the PS3 will be aviable the 03/03/07 in Europe but I am not sur I will buy it this day because 600€ for a 16 yrs old boy… It’s a little expensive but the PS3 will be in my room very soon ^^
And I’m still waiting the usernames for us…
Comment by Tintin — Dec 14, 2006 @ 7:17 pm
Ohhh the 3 of 3 in the year:
2007 = 2 + 0 + 0 + 7 = 9 / 3 = 3
:)
Comment by Laze — Dec 14, 2006 @ 7:25 pm
Laze, you been watching too much “The Number 23″ haven’t you?
Comment by OrganicShadow — Dec 14, 2006 @ 8:05 pm
Andy, I was talking to a PR at the 3space event and he said that the multi tasking would involve background downloading, playing music while gaming etc.
Tintin, the Europe username registration came online eariler tonight! Go here: https://secure.eu.playstation.com/user/ps3_info_registration/pn/login.jhtml?locale=en_GB&WT.mc_id=10050
Comment by Tom Eccles — Dec 14, 2006 @ 10:43 pm
Thanks Tom for posting the registration page, though for people that are finding it difficult navigating to the actual registration site (Tom Eccles link takes you to the login site but not the registration one), here it is:
https://account.np.ac.playstation.net/accounts/register/reg_explain.vm
Comment by James Banks — Dec 15, 2006 @ 8:45 am
superb. sony knows how to care.
Comment by Rush — Dec 15, 2006 @ 10:38 am
woop my forum post made the news…
I believe I didnt take any info out of context. Atleast I hope I haven’t. haha I guesse no-one’s gonna answer my questions now at the next threespeech event, lol
Comment by sigmund judge — Dec 15, 2006 @ 11:16 am
Tom- Thanks for the info. I was hoping that it would include the background downloading etc. when multi-tasking was mentioned.
For all of you future PS3 owners in Europe, you will be really wanting the multitasking feature. Got my PS3 last night, and waited at least 30 minutes for a new firmware update to download and install. Obviously during any downloads you can’t do anything but cancel. Started to download the Lemmings demo, but had been going for about 30-40 minutes and still had a ways to go, so I cancelled and came back to it later and just watched a couple tv shows on my DVR while it was going. The Motorstorm demo was 450+ MB and took about 1 1/2-2 hours.
I know Sony has a lot of people logging into these servers and downloading stuff, but these download speeds are really bad and I have a pretty fast broadband speed. More servers are needed badly, as well as the background downloading/multi-tasking.
Having said that, the PS3 is fantastic. Played a little Resistance and Ridge Racer 7 last night. Graphics, even on my current SDTV, look incredible. Will be buying an HDTV within a month, and I’m sure it’ll be 10 times better, but for now, this is a marked improvement (for me) over last gen PS2 and Xbox games.
Comment by Andy — Dec 15, 2006 @ 12:37 pm
Oh, forgot to post my PSN id, if anyone wants to get some multiplayer action going. It’s andycapps
Comment by Andy — Dec 15, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
Download speeds are ok.
And its great news that Europe can register their screen names now!! The launch is ohhh sooo close. hehe, cheers!
Comment by Kamesen — Dec 15, 2006 @ 1:28 pm
Isn’t this a semi-official blog for the PS3? Then why all the typos? Man, that was hard to read.
Comment by Brian — Dec 15, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
“with the view of a tv tuner and tivo like service to be available in the 3rd quater of 2007.”
What does that mean? “With the view of a tv tuner…etc…” Is this suppost to imply the PS3 has DVR capabilities? I never heard of that option before but it would be great to get it.
Can the PS3 currently do DVR at all? Is there an add-on TV tuner that I never heard about or can you use any tuner like on the 360’s media center?
Comment by Paul — Dec 15, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Wow… £425 or lower
This is good news indeed.
Comment by JetarR — Dec 15, 2006 @ 2:43 pm
#Brian#
If you take a closer look you’ll see that this copy wasn’t written by ThreeSpeech, it was taken from a comment left under a previous post.
Comment by Three Speech — Dec 15, 2006 @ 3:44 pm
houhou
Comment by aga — Dec 15, 2006 @ 5:34 pm
I want a 20GB PS3! Why have 2 SKU’s and only sell one? And no VGA leads? Shame. An easy way of getting HD gaming killed in its bed.
Still, the rest seems pretty positive. If the price is sub-£400 that would be excellent.
Comment by Slacky — Dec 16, 2006 @ 11:24 am
Paul, they said that it would be possible to add DVR to the PS3, meaning an add on (probably a USB tuner) and viewing / recording software. At the moment it doesnt have a TV tuner, so it doesnt have any DVR capabilities.
Thinking about this, it looks like they’re going down the same road as the Location Free product with the PS3. I wonder if we will be able to watch live TV on a PSP with the PS3 TV tuner?
Comment by Tom Eccles — Dec 16, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
“playstation store auto ressume”
Can someone explain to me what does this mean exactly?
Thanks
Comment by TTP — Dec 17, 2006 @ 7:16 pm
Why no VGA Sony?
Hey, guess who HAS VGA? yep. you guessed it
Comment by admartian — Dec 18, 2006 @ 10:39 am
We NEED the ability to muti-task on the online store!
Pleez let us queue our downloads and DOWNLOAD IN THE BACKGROUND WHILE WE PLAY A GAME!!
Comment by HachiRoku — Dec 19, 2006 @ 5:21 pm
Does this mean that I won’t be able to install and run Linux on my PS3?
Comment by Zta — Dec 20, 2006 @ 9:06 am
“playstation store auto-resume” means we all want to be able to download something from the Playstation Store, and have it CONTINUE where it left off, if we suddenly lose network connection or turn our machine off. (like BT downloads)
I think this is an absolute MUST to have!
Comment by HachiRokuHachiRoku — Dec 20, 2006 @ 5:26 pm
Please release the TECH Demos that were shown running at
E3. The Ducks and the Boat stuff.
Thanks
Comment by majormauser — Dec 21, 2006 @ 11:23 am
[…] For det andet, og mindst lige så spændende, så går der rygter om, at PS3 kommer til Europa til en oris på “kun” 425 engelske pund, eller mindre. Derudover vil mange af de savnede funktioner være tilgængelige ved lanceringen, såsom mulighed for at downloade, mens man spiller. Nedenstående er sakset fra Three Speech: […]
Pingback by MO/blog » Blog Archive » Spændende PS3-rygter — Jan 3, 2007 @ 9:35 am
[…] Well like many people in the UK I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for the European release of Sony’s new console the Playstation 3. But even though the US and Japan are already enjoying blue ray high deff gaming, we in the UK have to wait till either the first or second week in march 2007 (or so its rumoured https://threespeech.com/blog/?p=219 ). […]
Pingback by Something Interesting » Blog Archive » PS3 news — Jan 3, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
Hi
I live in Germany and I tried to preorder the PS3 today. I was told at the shop (a large multimedia chain store) that Sony won’t take any preorders after 31.12.06 and they had heard rumours that the March launchdate is going to be put back again to maybe Summer or even autumn.
Anyone know anything about this? Are we going to be disappointed again?
Comment by Marion — Jan 13, 2007 @ 8:11 pm
[…] O jee, er komen geruchten op gang dat de launch van de PS3 in het gedrang komt. Eerdere berichten van ThreeSpeech gaven aan dat ivm het afsluiten van fiscale jaren enzo de lancering eerder zou plaatsvinden (en een creatieveling had het over 3 Maart, namelijk PS 3 op dag 3 van maand 3 maar dit lijkt me enigzins afgezaagd) maar nu gaan er weer geruchten dat de releasedatum van het spel verlaat wordt. Reden? De organisatie die de marketing voor de PS3 doet heeft via GamesIndustry door laten schemeren dat de commercials pas in de laatste week van Maart gepland staan en dat de launch dus eerder de 29ste verwacht kan worden. We zullen zien… […]
Pingback by Slog » Uitstel PS3 launch? — Jan 15, 2007 @ 8:06 pm
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